Excuse me but can I be with you for a while?
Author: Nathalia
Rating: PG
Challenge: Tropical Punch #18 - head above water
Extras / Toppings: none
Word Count: 1,008
Story: Misfits
Summary: Dennis gets a phone call that derails his plans.
Notes: Lilith Fair: use a female artist’s song as a prompt (Silent All These Years by Tori Amos). I think I lost track of it somewhere and Dennis obviously has a history with complicated women and hospitals. I think I have found something aside from Dennis and Stella to dwell on.
Dennis and Stella were mulling over their new project and he was having a hard time being civil to this woman who thought she knew everything better. Every few years, they would be paired up and do great work together and almost kill each other in the process so that superiors decided not to try again. Why they would then be locked in the same room by the next supervisor was a mystery to Dennis, but here he was, devising a plan.
Stella was saying something but Dennis got distracted by his phone ringing incessantly.
“Sorry,” he muttered before answering it and as soon as he had pressed the green button.
The words that he heard made no sense and it took him a while to realize that it was Winter, her voice distorted by sobs. She kept repeating Marcheline’s name but it was hard to make out anything else as she spoke quickly, only stopping to sob. “Elle est morte”, Dennis finally heard and gasped at the very idea.
“Honey, hang in there. Are you at home? I’m coming,” he forced out and then, Winter was quiet.
“Honey?” Stella who wasn’t happy about Dennis interrupting her mid-sentence asked with a raised eyebrow. “I thought you and whatever her name is aren’t really that official and you’re always very stingy about nicknames like that.”
“That wasn’t Rebecca if that’s who you mean,” Dennis said, getting up and looking around to decide if he needed to take anything. “That was Winter.”
“I thought she had broken up with you months ago,” Stella reminded him. “Not that you wanted her to from what Joseph tells me.”
“She was crying and talking about Marcheline and an accident. In French. This is serious.”
Stella’s jaw fell open but she regained her composure within seconds. “Then what are you still doing here? Go be with her and try help her however you can.”
***
It took him far too long to get to Winter’s apartment. The elevator wasn’t working once again and Dennis had to take the stairs to the fifth floor, as always wondering how Winter still lived this high up. He had repeatedly tried to talk her into moving somewhere else, where she could live on the first floor, or at least look for a place where the elevators weren’t constantly broken. He still had no idea how she did it.
He still had Winter’s keys despite her having told him to return them after she had broken up with him. Not that he had used it since but now he did without wasting a second thought on how she might react.
He found her on the kitchen floor, weeping, her back to him and Dennis wrapped his arms around her from behind, holding her. He didn’t say anything, just held her.
***
When she woke up in her bed, Dennis was lying next to her, his eyes wide open.
“Sorry about before,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “I just can’t believe...”
Dennis nodded. “I know.”
“My little sister. I think both of us thought that it would be me before her. She was so … so strong and nothing ever got to her. She was so much better at this than me. She used to tease me about how in many ways, she was my big sister, not only because of her stature. And then she and her whole team get gunned down. I think only the sniper survived and he’s in psychiatric care.”
“She used to kick my ass. When we first started dating, she told me she’d break all the bones in my body if I ever hurt you and if anyone else had told me so, I would have laughed about it but she might have just done it,” Dennis remembered and Winter laughed.
“I’m going to add her name to the Jolly Roger on my calf. I’m not in the field anymore, nobody would be able to identify me because of it. She got my name tattooed on her about six months ago.” Winter smiled and reached down to her calf. “She told me I should do the same, that it wouldn’t hurt that much this time around.”
“I’ll take you to a tattoo studio tomorrow if you want to,” Dennis offered and, snuggling against him, she nodded.
“That would be really nice. You might also have to carry me down the stairs. The elevator is broken.”
“It always is,” Dennis sighed. “You should stay with me a few days. My apartment building’s elevator works and then you wouldn’t have to be alone all the time. I can take a few days off and be with you.”
She brushed a few dark strands of hair from her face. “What would your girlfriend say about that? The new one. Rebecca, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t matter, Viv. She doesn’t mean half as much to me as you do and you need me right now.”
Instead of answering, she pressed herself even closer to Dennis, her head on his chest, and closed her eyes. Dennis slowly ran a hand up and down her back, knowing that this meant yes and probably the end of his latest relationship. Not that it mattered. He felt Winter fall asleep, her breath slow down and deepen, and closed his eyes, too, thinking of Marcheline, how she had once broken his toes.
He would miss her. Not as much as Winter would but he had started to think of the strong, slightly masculine woman as part of his small family. Marcheline hadn’t been around a lot, always on the move, but she had made an impression on him. He would never forget how they had both sat by Winter’s bedside after the accident, both of them worried sick, and how she, the one who should have been panicking and having trouble adjusting to the changes, had been the one to calm them down.
She would be missed but right now, Dennis had to look after her sister, make sure she went back to her collected self.